


maybe I listen more than you think

by sandyk



Category: Superstore (TV)
Genre: Bi Jonah, F/M, Infidelity, bi amy, just like the author, reference to assaults, reference to miscarriage, this story is pro-abortion, unironic use of the words pubis mound
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-22
Updated: 2018-05-22
Packaged: 2019-05-10 04:48:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14730227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandyk/pseuds/sandyk
Summary: Amy said,"We just started talking, we're probably really bad at it."





	maybe I listen more than you think

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to A! Title from the national's the system only dreams in total darkness. no profit, not mine.

Amy read the memos. She went to Target and bought a decent pregnancy test. She felt like a fucking idiot. Of course it was positive. She drove straight to Planned Parenthood. Three days later she was back to where she wanted to be. Her dad drove her home, it was so weird. 

She said, "Are you embarrassed, I mean. Are you ashamed of me?"

"No, no," her dad said. "No. Never. I wish, you know I love my granddaughter, but I remember you opening that college acceptance letter. You were so excited. Emma, I love. I love her more than you love he. But. You are brilliant."

"You do not love Emma more than me," Amy said. "Come on." She wiped at the tears on her face.

"Are you kidding? Grandchildren are fantastic. They don't give you lip, they don't sass you. They just think you're the best grandpapa in the world."

"Emma gives me ton of lip and sassing back," Amy said. "It would be even worse if she knew about this."

"You should tell her someday," her father said. "Let her know that she doesn't have to do things. You know."

"Oh, okay, awesome, my dad is telling me to tell my daughter to know abortion is great. Go for it!"

"No, let her know she has choices. People try to take away our choices every damn day, but Emma still has them," her dad said.

"When did I get in the car with the spokesman for Planned Parenthood?" Amy laughed.

"I'm allowed to have an opinion," her dad said.

She went to work a day later. People had finally stopped bringing up her and Jonah kissing since Jonah and Kelly hadn't broken up and were going to move in together. Amy felt unsettled and lost. Her whole fucking life, she thought.

When she played video games, she made choices, shooting at things, killing things. It was pretty cathartic. How much catharsis did she need? Why wasn't she happy? Why couldn't she make things work? She'd run the house while Adam slacked off, making things work was her job. Now she couldn't even do a damn party. She had sex with her stupid ex and let him get her pregnant. She pretended to be Kelly's friend and ended up being asked to give a pee sample in front of that women from the PTA. 

She could hear the stupid PA. It wasn't a very good song. She went to the bathroom. She walked out and almost ran into Jonah. That was a weird random coincidence she thought. "Hey," Jonah said, smiling. "Nice to see you."

"Nice to see you, too, what a great place to run into each other," Amy said. She looked at his sneakers and said, "Remember Black Friday? That stupid pregnancy test."

"Food poisoning instead," Jonah said. 

"Adam actually did knock me up, like two months ago. I just had an abortion," Amy said. 

"Oh, oh," Jonah said. "You're seeing Adam again?"

"Once," Amy said. "His girlfriend broke up with him. It was stupid."

"Well, better than Tate," Jonah said.

"I don't think you get to decide that," Amy said. "You're not wrong."

"You had a crush on me," Jonah said, blurting out. "You said."

"And you decided to move in with Kelly," Amy said. 

"Well," Jonah said. "At least we're talking."

"We are talking," Amy said. She smiled. "Sometimes I'm a bitch. And sometimes you're an asshole. Like, I kissed you because I thought we were dying and I knew you liked me. And you like me and you keep dating Kelly."

"I think that's an oversimplification," Jonah said. 

"Probably," Amy said. "We just started talking, we're probably really bad at it."

"We talk all the time," Jonah said. 

"Like, I mean, the talk we should have when the store reopened. What you wanted to talk about," Amy said.

"Right, so let's take a break and regroup," Jonah said.

Jonah came to her house that night, after he got off work, so nearly 11 pm. He said, "I'm glad you're up, sorry, I know it's late."

"Are you drunk?"

"No, I don't get drunk," Jonah said. "I take a lot of, alcohol would react badly with my pills."

"So here you are," Amy said. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Why does everyone act like it's so normal that I just burnt out of business school and drove straight here and got a job? At Cloud 9? I fucked up at business school but I graduated cum laude from Vassar. It's not just a women's college," Jonah said.

"You seem a little drunk," Amy said.

"No, I am actually just exhausted. And I didn't eat a lot today. And I had a beer," Jonah said. "I could be slightly drunk."

"You can come in," Amy said. "Do you want to get comfy on the couch? You didn't drive here, right?"

"Of course not," Jonah said. "One more DUI and my license is kaput. Wait, no, statute of limitations. I could get a DUI."

"You have a DUI?" Amy made strong coffee in the kitchen and then brought in a mug for Jonah. "I can't believe you have a DUI."

"Two," Jonah said, holding up two fingers. "I was seventeen and nineteen. I was just driving home both times. And also, they stopped me because I was driving too slow. I didn't want to hurt anyone."

"So that makes it okay," Amy said. 

"No," Jonah said. "I did the time. Community service. Alcohol management. And then when I was gambling, they had me do the same thing. Minus the alcohol management."

"And now you take pills," Amy said.

"I'm depressed. With panic disorder," Jonah said. "Your turn."

"I already told you about my abortion." Amy took a deep breath. "I cheated on Adam once. I had sex in the bang room. Just the once. But I never told him. Or anyone."

"Who was this fellow? Please don't say Garrett," Jonah said.

"Her name was Jenny. Honestly, she looked a lot like Kelly, if Kelly were a little taller and not so pageanty," Amy said.

"What does that mean? Pageant-y?" Jonah blinked a lot and leaned over towards her.

"I mean, Jenny didn't style her hair in long cascading waves. She didn't wear those weird cold shoulder shirts with the bell sleeves. She dressed more like a J Crew model," Amy said. "I wonder how she's doing?"

"Can we look her up?" Jonah already had his phone out. Amy took it from him. 

"She is still super hot," Amy said. She showed Jonah a recent picture from Jenny's instagram. "She's also married to a super hot woman. Jeez."

"What else is she doing besides just her appearance? If you looked me up, I'd look good but I work at Cloud 9. I lost everything I owned in a tornado. I put some of that on instagram."

Amy skimmed through all the curated pictures. "She appears to work at some fancy specialty boutique in Chicago. Her wife is an accountant. She is doing fantastic. Way better than either of us."

"You have Emma," Jonah said. "That counts for something."

"She hates me," Amy said. "I think it might be normal adolescent stuff. I hope so."

"Why did you cheat with her and not me?"

Amy shrugged. "I was twenty-three. I told myself sex with women didn't count. But it really did."

"People say I look like a woman sometimes," Jonah said. 

"It's too late for me to cheat with you," she said. "You're cheating right now, not me."

"We broke up," Jonah said, engrossed in Jenny's instagram. "You're right about me. I don't know how I didn't end up married to Dina with five parrots."

"Please, Dina would kicked your ass out after about two nights," Amy said.

"I'm not horrible at sex," Jonah said.

"That's an endorsement," Amy said. "I just mean, she has the necessary self-esteem to recognize you're not into her. I don't know why Kelly doesn't."

"I'm into her. I was into her. PS, the sex is great," Jonah said.

Amy looked over at Jonah's phone. "Jenny has four tattoos."

"She's wearing a bikini in this one, I only see three," Jonah said. 

"She waxes everywhere but her face, that's how you can see number four," Amy said.

Jonah's mouth literally dropped. He whispered, "She has a tattoo on her pubis mound?"

"You talk like an idiot, it's on her pussy. And she has a piercing down there," Amy said.

"Oh, wow, I would cheat on Adam for her, too," Jonah said.

"Because you love Adam so much," Amy said. 

"Can I sleep here?" He looked sad and twelve-ish.

"Yes," Amy said. "But I have a six o'clock shift, so I'm waking you up when I leave and you have to go somewhere else."

They didn't have one of their special talks for another few days. Then a sudden summer storm meant they were both huddled in front of the store after it closed. "I noticed you started following Jenny on Instagram," Jonah said.

"You monitor my instagram?"

"I follow your instagram, I like to check who my friends are following, sometimes they're amazing people," Jonah said.

"I hate talking about exes, like, everyone else has so many, and or just a few, and I just basically, there's Adam. And some guys I dated in high school. And the girl I had an affair with," Amy said. "I always say I don't regret having Emma. But honestly, it's such a fine line. I regret working here."

"I know a few women who went to college with newborns and graduated," Jonah said.

She hit his arm. "Fuck you, I wasn't super woman. I was nineteen and I loved Adam, I thought I did, and you know, I know lots of people from my high school who did the exact same thing. We're all divorced, too."

"I wasn't saying that," Jonah said. "Sorry. Sorry. Look, life happens. I mean, we all do the best we can with what we know. I just, I wondered why you stopped taking college courses."

"Adam lost his job," Amy said. "We should have been saving money. Then we blew it all on that stupid useless counseling." She looked up at the rain. "Maybe I won't get too soaked."

Jonah took her hand and squeezed. "Sorry. I didn't do anything with my degree. I worked at Conde Nast as an unpaid intern, and one time, I spent eight months on an organic farm. All I did was clean the farm house. I spent three months in Manchester and all I did was go to the library every day. And drink at night. My parents kept paying. When I went to business school, I felt like, okay, here's my last chance to do something. But all I did was burn out. When I called them I was in St. Louis, they mostly cut me off. They'd never cut me off totally. So, I was way more stupid than you were if you were stupid and frankly, whatever regrets you have, Emma is fed and clothed and she feels loved enough that she can express her anger at you. I've never once told my dad I'm angry with him for cheating on my mom. Not once."

"Wow, you are pathetic," Amy said. She squeezed his hand. "It isn't going to stop raining."

"Probably," Jonah said.

It was really only a few more minutes.

Amy asked Jonah out to dinner the next day. "If we're going to keep vomiting these revelations on each other, let's at least get some decent food. Sorry, I just used vomit and dinner like that."

"Is it a date?" He said it casually and then he looked at her more closely. She blushed.

"It's a date. I probably won't put out," Amy said. 

"That's okay," Jonah said. 

They went to an excellent Mexican restaurant Amy knew. She told him before they walked in, "If you dare start talking about unknown gems or try to speak in Spanish to any of the waiters, I will make you pay."

"I'm already paying for dinner," Jonah said. "I figured it made more sense to pay proportionately. Since my income is about three times greater than yours, I pay for three dates, then you pay for one, I pay for three, etc."

"I am not going to complain about that."

At first they ate in silence. Amy wondered if they'd run of out of things to just blurt out to each other. Then Jonah said, "I made a sex tape with a guy I was seeing and it's up on the internet."

"Huh," Amy said.

"He put it up, it's revenge porn. People don't think about that applying to men. You can't actually see my face but you can hear me. We dated for three weeks."

"And when you broke up, he uploaded it to the internet? Like just random internet space?"

"Pornhub," Jonah said. "One time I was idly browsing this porn blog I like, and there's me. 'I love this amateur tape!' I DM'd the guy and was like, yeah, I didn't want that up there and he took it down. But that's like, one place." 

"Do you have a lot of ex-boyfriends? I just have the one ex-girlfriend. Sort of," Amy said.

"I have more ex-girlfriends than ex-boyfriends but I have less than ten of each," Jonah said. "I just wanted to get us started."

"But now I want to see it and I can't do that at a restaurant," Amy said. "Can you give me a hint so I can look it up when I go to the bathroom?"

"I don't want you to watch it. It's gross. I didn't even know I was being filmed. I mean, if I were a woman, would you want to watch it in the bathroom," Jonah said.

"You'd be a hot woman, that's not fair. But fine. I'm sorry about that," Amy said. "One time when the store got held up, the guy punched me in the face. It was so painful."

"That sucks, oh, I see, we're doing things that suck tonight," Jonah said. 

"You started it," Amy said. "Also, one time, this was really horrible, I was walking out of the parking lot, and this guy held a gun on me and stole my car. I gave him everything, like, my whole purse. And my wedding ring was in there because you can't wear jewelry at work. As you know." It was embarrassing, Amy felt a catch in her voice. "I ran back to the store, and thank God, Glenn was still there. He was so nice. He called the cops and he sat with me. He even called Adam for me."

"Glenn's great," Jonah said. "One time, I was just walking to college and I saw a car accident. Both drivers died. It was really awful."

"This is not cheerful," Amy said. "Um. Okay, last one. I had a miscarriage when I was twenty two. I didn't know I was pregnant, like, I suspected. But then it was so painful and so much blood."

"My mom had two miscarriages after I was born. Then they stopped," Jonah said. "Stopped trying to have another kid. I guess they wanted a girl."

"Okay, no more talking about sad things," Amy said. "We're done with that. The first time I masturbated, I was sixteen and it was because of something I read on the internet. I did it really badly."

"How do you masturbate badly?" Jonah smiled. 

"It's easy for you, everything's on the outside. You know, here's the penis. There's some testicles. Stick your finger in your butt. Pussies are different. It's like up and to the left or the right and rub this or that. It was confusing. I told my friend Renee and you know what she said?"

Jonah said, "Why do you keep calling me your friend when I'm a horrible person to you?"

Amy laughed out loud at that one. She even snorted. She said, "She told me women don't need to masturbate, they can get all the pleasure they need from their man. So that wasn't helpful. So I watched some porn. Which was actually a little more helpful. I was eighteen before I really got it down."

"Now you're great at it," Jonah said. "I assume. Did you show Emma the tips?"

"No," Amy said. "Oh, God, I totally walked in on Emma when she was, she was. It was so embarrassing."

"My dad walked in on me jerking off and he was so drunk, he had been at this party. I didn't think he'd be home yet. He just looks at me and goes 'i hope the lady you're thinking of is hot!' and then I did not come at all."

Amy was laughing so hard, she felt like crying. She said, "Did you two ever talk about it?"

"God, no, he actually thinks it was my brother Gideon," Jonah said. "So we were, we are, where is this going?"

"We're talking," Amy said. 

"We talked for two hours this morning about the Handmaid's Tale," Jonah said.

"I mean, real talk. We don't do a lot of real talk. Like how I felt about you and you felt about me. But this is real talk that takes us to the future. Like, our future. A basis of communication," Amy said.

"Our future?"

"Duh, I don't tell just everyone my masturbation stories," Amy said. She smiled. 

He took her home to her home and kissed her at the door. It felt like it took an hour for him to lean and it was only a few moments really, and his hand was on her cheek so gentle and they kissed. Were kissing. She pulled at his shirt to bring him closer. "Next time," she said.

"Next time you want me to show you how to masturbate?"

"Exactly," Amy said. 

He didn't at all, he fucked her and she came so loudly she was worried about the neighbors. She laid on the bed, so fucked out, she said, "You sounded much more turned on than on that revenge porn tape."

Jonah was half on top of her. He said, "I can't believe you went and looked for it. Good thing I already love you."

"Me, too. I love me and you," Amy said. "Good talk."


End file.
